Hi All,
2021 was yet another good year for Karen and me! Sure we had the continuing restrictions due to Covid, but there were no bushfires or floods, and we did manage quite a few trips away - including a couple interstate!
If you want to find out what we are doing more than once a year at Xmas, you can visit our Facebook pages by clicking Karen's Facebook page and Brett's Facebook page. You can also see a whole lot more of our photos of bushwalks and trips on Brett's Flickr page - which now has about 70,000 images on display.
Snowy Mountains Cycling and Walking
In late January we headed to Tumbarumba to do their short rail trail (out and back) with friends before moving on to a lodge in Thredbo for a week of mountain biking and walking with other members of the Shoalhaven Bushwalkers. Apart from the excellent walking, biking, accommodation and restaurant-quality food, the highlight was a successful search for the site where Evan Hayes perished in 1928. Hayes and Laurie Seaman both died on a cross-country ski trip to Mt Kosciuszko in 1928. Seaman's Hut was built with money donated by the parents of Laurie Seaman. The body of Evan Hayes was not found for twelve months. Karen is related to the tragedy, as Evan's father, and Karen's great grandfather, were brothers.
One of the images below shows Karen sitting on the same rock that is shown in the following photo taken where Evan's body was found. We were surprised to find a nearby cairn and plaque.
Click thumbnails below for larger images then click again to make small - and hover cursor on image for DESCRIPTION
.jpg "Tumbarumba Rail Trail")
.jpg "Tumbarumba Rail Trail")
.jpg "Tumbarumba Rail Trail")
.jpg "Paddy River Falls")
.jpg "Karen helping Graeme after a fall on the Thredbo Valley Track")
.jpg "On the way to Kosciuszko")
.jpg "Evan Hayes memorial cairn and plaque")
.jpg "Historical photo of the site where the body of Evan Hayes was found")
.jpg "On top of North Ramshead")
.jpg "Karen and a balancing rock")
.jpg "Karen photographing our group")
.jpg "Beside the upper Snowy River")
.jpg "Inside Boali Lodge")
.jpg "On the track to Cascade Hut")
.jpg "Bob's Ridge on the trail to Cascade Hut")
.jpg "Karen inside Cascade Hut")
.jpg "Cascade Hut")
.jpg "Our hosts and chefs at Boali Lodge")
Central West Cycle Trip
In April we headed for Mudgee for a week of riding on the Central West Cycle Trail, visiting the towns of Gulgong, Dunedoo, Mendooran, Ballimore etc.
Click thumbnails below for larger images then click again to make small - and hover cursor on image for DESCRIPTION
.jpg "Everyone at the start")
.jpg "A bad section of the track")
.jpg "Through the state forest")
.jpg "Ortlieb Pannier Promotion")
.jpg "Downhill!")
.jpg "Karen waving to the train driver")
.jpg "Taking a break")
.jpg "Typical dirt road")
.jpg "Avoiding the locals")
.jpg "Gulgong Railway Station")
Townsville Birding
In late May Karen and I flew to Townsville for two weeks of birding, walking and doing tourist stuff! We hired a car and stayed at a few different locations, including Charters Towers. Bird-wise, we didn't see anything new, but the birding was excellent and we had good sightings of a lot of birds we had not seen very often in the past.
Click thumbnails below for larger images then click again to make small - and hover cursor on image for DESCRIPTION
.jpg "Karen near the top of Castle Hill in Townsville")
.jpg "Brett on Magnetic Island")
.jpg "Burdekin Falls Dam")
.jpg "Darter")
.jpg "White-browed Crake")
.jpg "Crimson Finch")
.jpg "Pacific Baza")
The Plains Wanderer Trip
In late October we drove to the Riverina for a couple of nights in Corowa, three nights in Deniliquin and two nights in Kerang in Victoria, doing the usual walking and tourist things - but the main focus of our trip was a special tour with Phil Maher to try to find a Plains Wanderer - a bird we had never seen before. Phil runs bird tours for a living, and the Plains Wanderer is his specialty. He has access to a private property in the middle of the Hay Plain where the birds are seen regularly. Although the tour was reasonably expensive - $720 for the two of us - but it did encompass an entire day where we visited a number of different habitats and looked for all sorts of birds. The first stint was from 6am to 1pm, and the second stint was from 3pm until midnight! We spotted a female Plains Wanderer shortly after dark - our only new bird for the year! The photo of the bird below is not ours - we were too busy looking and didn't want to disturb the bird any more than we were already doing!
Click thumbnails below for larger images then click again to make small - and hover cursor on image for DESCRIPTION
.jpg "Looking for the Plains Wanderer in the middle of the Hay Plain")
.jpg "Karen at the trig on top of Pyramid Hill west of Echuca")
Grenfell Cycling Trip
Our last major trip for the year took us to Grenfell for five days of cycling (350km) and a day of walking in the Weddin Mountains. Grenfell turned out to be a nice little town that is well worth a visit, and the Chrysler Museum was special for me as I worked for Chrysler for a couple of years back in 1970s - putting safety catches (see photo below) on Valiants, Chryslers and Chargers! Other towns visited on our ride were Koorawatha, Cowra and Canowindra.
Click thumbnails below for larger images then click again to make small - and hover cursor on image for DESCRIPTION
.jpg "Painted Silos at Grenfell")
.jpg "Bonnet safety catch on right")
.jpg "Grenfell Railway Station")
.jpg "We stayed at Koorawatha Pub")
.jpg "Watch out turtle!")
.jpg "Karen moving the turtle off the road")
.jpg "Japanese Garden at Cowra")
.jpg "We had to take a Woodstock photo!")
.jpg "Eddy's - our accommodation at Canowindra")
.jpg "A flooded Lachlan River turned a 70km day into a 100km day!")
.jpg "Karen outside the Goolagong Post Office in the rain")
.jpg "Hey Charger!")
.jpg "On top of the Weddin Mountains")
Bushwalking
Karen and I are both still on the Shoalhaven Bushwalkers committee and walk with the club most weeks. The photos below show the range of activities that we do, and some of the spectacular local scenery we have the privilege of seeing ...
Click thumbnails below for larger images then click again to make small - and hover cursor on image for DESCRIPTION
.jpg "Kayaking on Jervis Bay")
.jpg "Cave on Little Forest Plateau")
.jpg "Burnt forest near the Vines")
.jpg "Coastal walking")
.jpg "Booderee National Park")
.jpg "Wineglass Tor and the Great Horseshoe Bend of the Shoalahaven")
.jpg "Seal in Booderee")
.jpg "More coastal scenery")
.jpg "A Waratah forest after the fires")
.jpg "This ravine filled with water a few days after this photo was taken!")
.jpg "Whale watching in Booderee")
.jpg "The discovery of an RAAF drone near Albatross")
.jpg "A Parma Creek waterfall")
.jpg "Climbing aids in Parma Creek")
.jpg "A Parma Creek waterfall")
.jpg "Parma Creek")
.jpg "Sunset shadows on Main Road 92 embankment")
.jpg "Wineglass Tor")
.jpg "Near Jerrawangala")
.jpg "Near Tianjara Falls")
.jpg "Nulla Point")
.jpg "Near Nulla Point")
.jpg "Karen and Brett playing dress-ups at the Bushwalkers' Xmas party")
Other Stuff
This "Other Stuff" paragraph is pretty much the same as the past couple of years.
I'm still golfing once a week, and my handicap is still in single figures (around 7 at the moment). As usual, while I'm playing golf on Thursday morning, Karen is riding her mountain bike with the Shoalhaven Bicycle Users Group (BUG). She does one or two extra rides a week as well. In addition, Karen swims three times a week (on average) with the Wobbegongs Swimming Club at Huskisson.
I am still the Secretary of the Bay and Basin Camera Club, but unfortunately I didn't step down this year as I had originally planned so that I could actually do more photography! My camera gear remains largely unused!
Karen is still the treasurer of BirdLife Shoalhaven, and I am still the webmaster. We still feed our resident magpie pair - Ricky and Lucy - but they did not produce any offspring this year. Last year's chick - Covid - got kicked out of our territory mid year, unlike the virus which is still hanging around!
Apart from taking down a number of vine-covered timber lattices and replacing them with metal mesh, our maintenance of house and garden was just the usual lawnmowing and plant pruning this year.
The automatic 2.4 litre turbo-diesel Mitsubishi Pajero Sport we bought at the end of 2019 again did not get the opportunity to do many kilometres this year. Despite our trips away this year, we still only travelled about 15,000 kilometres, down significantly from the 25,000 kilometres per year we averaged pre-Covid.
Plans for 2022
Covid willing, we are planning trips to Tasmania and Western Australia in 2022 - but who knows whether either of them will happen!?
As always, we hope everyone has a great Xmas and New Year, and that 2022 is a major improvement on 2020 and 2021 ...
Cheers,
Brett and Karen
P.S. As usual, our previous yearly letters can be viewed by clicking the following links - 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020.